Worthy Brown's Daughter

In nineteenth-century Oregon, lawyer Matthew Penny agrees to help newly freed slave Worthy Brown free his teenage daughter, but when Worthy is arrested for murder, the new turn in events raises the stakes significantly.

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I wasn't sure I was going to like this obvious departure of Margolin writing a period piece set in 1860's Oregon and although the legal aspects are quite simplistic, I rather enjoyed the story. It's intriguing that Margolin based it on an actual incident in history. Margolin spends a little more time on characterization than he does in his regular novels but this area is still not his forte.

Written at a grade 10 reading level. It takes an interesting aspect of law in the wild west and stretches it out through violence, romance and Victorian mores. I was taken in by the book reviews. This is not an author I would ever read again, although I might suggest it to a younger reader who would like a black and white plot line.

The author provided an interesting legal story inspired by actual historical events but failed to convince me that he had a good grasp of other historical details. It's worth reading to understand the difficulties of Blacks in early Oregon but it's not a great novel.

Simplistic. In the author's notes, Margolin says this was a book he worked on then put away when his legal thrillers hit. Sorry to say, it reads like a first novel attempt. Very basic characters and plot. About the only interesting thing is the time in which it's set - Oregon, on the brink of the Civil War - and even that's not well drawn.